Hi, first of all I’m new to the forum so be gentle if this topic isn’t exactly in the forum’s spirit.
I have a decent experience programming in Java, including several simple 2d games (pretty basic though, most complex is an incomplete shooter game) using Applet.
For a while now I’ve wanted to learn game programming seriously and figured LWJGL 2.93 is a great way to do so.
Basically I’d love to get some advices how to approach this. Any useful resources, tutorials? Do anyone know this tutorial: https://youtu.be/0v56I5UWrYY
And can give his opinion?
Applets are no longer a thing but there is the option to use web start.
For me, watching someone else program (which I think is what most of those youtube videos simply are) usually didn’t help. If I needed something specific and already had a general idea about the theory, I’d then go watch a specific tutorial. Though I usually never watch tutorials on youtube anymore. Reading has been the most beneficial for me.
It’s not so much about LWJGL as it is about OpenGL. If you’re going to create games with LWJGL, you’re gonna have to use OpenGL for rendering graphics, and boy, is OpenGL difficult to learn. OpenGL is a pretty low-level graphics API, so brace yourself for some complicated stuff.
There are dozens of people out there who have video tutorials on using OpenGL with LWJGL, but no one (in my opinion, that is) does it as well as this dude called ThinMatrix. He’s passionate about what he does and he covers a lot more topics than others.
You can find him on YouTube. He’s currently working on a low-poly 3d game called Equilinox, and it’s absolutely beautiful, so rest assured, you’ll be learning from a pro.
What I did to learn OpenGL was: I watched the first couple of videos from ThinMatrix’s tutorial series, after which I practiced OGL development on my own. Once I got the hang of it, I used learnopengl.com. It’s absolutely wonderful, but the examples are all in C++. Not that it matters; C++ code shouldn’t be too hard to read for someone who’s already experienced with Java.
It’s amazing as well, but it’s mainly used for 2D game development. It has limited 3D support, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. jMonkeyEngine is a purely 3D java game engine, and it’s really powerful (nothing compared to AAA game engines like Unreal and CryEngine, though).
